Maternal & Child Health

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Browsing Maternal & Child Health by Author "Chabuka, David"

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    Drug Adherence Among Children Presenting for Routine Cardiac Clinic Follow Up at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital
    (Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, 2022-03-16) Nyirenda, Brian; Chabuka, David
    1.1 Study design To address the objective of this study, a cross-sectional study will be conducted. 1.2 Problem statement Adherence to medications is a prevalent problem in children with chronic diseases. Congenital and acquired cardiac conditions are among the common chronic diseases in children. Adherence to prescribed medications among children suffering from cardiac diseases is a worldwide problem. Lack of adherence to prescribed medications is associated with adverse outcomes such as high mortality rates, increased hospitalization, poor quality of life and increased healthcare costs. Therefore, it is important for healthcare workers to recognize and address adherence problems to ensure children are getting optimal health care. There is paucity of data on drug adherence among children attending routine cardiac flow clinic at QECH. Hence, this study will generate preliminary data that will bench mark drug adherence issues among children at cardiac clinic 1.3 Rationale and justification Drug adherence problems pause a big challenge in children with chronic illness. Poor drug adherence is associated with substantial increase in morbidity and mortality rates as well as health care costs. Despite the devastating effects of poor drug adherence, very few studies have been done to address this problem. Furthermore, it is argued that research touching on adherence is mainly done in major non communicable diseases and other chronic conditions such as; asthma, HIV/AIDS, diabetes mellitus, and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) unlike in children with cardiac conditions which also carry a high lifetime risk of morbidity and mortality Therefore, it is important to assess drug adherence in children in order to generate data that can inform policy as well as improve rational drug use in children at Queen Elizabeth Central hospital. 1.4 Objectives The main objective of this study is to assess factors associated with drug adherence among children presenting for routine paediatric cardiac clinic at Queen Elizabeth central hospital. 1.5 Methodology The study will be conducted at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital paediatric cardiac clinic. 65 children aged 6 months-18 years will be recruited after obtaining informed consent from the legal guardian and assent from eligible children respectively. Tools to be used to measure adherence rate and level include; self-reported questionnaire and visual analogue scale. Data entry and analysis will be done at college of medicine soon after data collection and this will be done using Microsoft excel and Stata software. Descriptive data analysis will be conducted where continuous variables will be summarized as mean and standard deviation. Frequencies and proportions will be computed for categorical variables. Regression analysis will be carried out to summarize possible relationships between the rate of drug adherence and predictor variables. The level of significance will be set at 0.05 1.6 Expected findings Low adherence rate among children presenting for routine cardiac clinic at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and the risk factors associated with them. 1.7 Results dissemination Upon completion of our study, the project report copies will be distributed to the College of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee (COMREC); the Undergraduate Research Projects Coordinator, Kamuzu University of Healthy Sciences (KUHes) Library, and to the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital Management. Other copies of the study will also be distributed to the Paediatric Department at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital from where the study will be conducted. The results will further be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication